Receptors and Signalling

Symptomatic relief in both chronic and acute brain disease can involve enhancing or suppressing synaptic transmission. For example, the use of L-Dopa for Parkinson’s disease and choline esterase inhibitors for Alzheimer’s disease are obvious examples of “replacement” therapy. On the other hand, excitotoxicity is the process whereby the major excitatory neurotransmitter in the CNS damages neurons. This is viewed as a predominant mechanism in acute neurological disorders including stroke, traumatic injury and epilepsy, and therapeutic interventions aimed at suppressing L-glutamate release and/or of negating the effect of this at “downstream” steps in a signalling pathway are highly topical. The major interest of this sub-group is to understand neuronal receptors and signalling mechanisms with a view to developing novel strategies for directly modulating synaptic transmission or its associated signalling cascades. This group comes together under the direction of  Professor Stuart Bevan